Monday, January 14, 2008

Using Windows Movie Maker for Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is a relatively new type of marketing method that is designed to get people to promote your products for you. As you put these videos into web-o-sphere at places like You Tube, MySpace, Associated Content and other places people get to see your products and if they like them put them on their own site or send them to their friends in email.

The key to viral marketing is to make it funny and yet still professional. Funny and exciting is what people want to see and if they are going to invest their time to upload it up to their email and send it to their friends. They want their friends to laugh; not to see a commercial.

Most computers come with Windows Movie Maker for free. The method of using the system is relatively easy. You up load your video and you can split it, put in text frames and dub over it with music. Once you are completed you can change the format to AVI or MPG and send it out to your friends or upload it.

The type of equipment you use for your video will change the overall quality of the video. For example a cell phone video isnt likely to take as good a quality picture as a digital camera. However, you are likely to have a cell phone camera with you when funny things do happen.

The higher the quality of the picture the higher the quality of the video and the more professional it looks. However, professionalism isnt always the goal if you want the video to look like it was taking on the fly. Sometimes this can be good if it is something funny and unrehearsed. The truth is that many of these videos are rehearsed and practiced many times. What your audience doesnt know wont hurt them.

In the end of the video you can roll your credits or direct people to your website. By leaving this message up for at least 10 seconds it will give the readers a chance to see your web address. Once they have done this there is anywhere from a 3 to 10% chance they will actually visit your site.

The great news is that viral marketing is free. There are a number of companies that dont spend a dime on this type of marketing and the audience does all the work for you. The better the videos, the funnier the videos the more people will enjoy them. The typical video is less than 30 seconds and can come in all types of imaginative forms. Have fun and dont spend a dime.

Murad Ali, a two-time published author, writes articles and offers advertisement space for businesses. Visit http://www.thenewbusinessworld.blogspot.comRtf File Conversion